Links on the Brain Research and Reading Comprehension Best Practices behind Practickle

Michael Pressley wrote this article and the one below. He compiles research and then summarizes it in an easy to read-and-understand style. The Best Practices that he describes are divided into three groups: World Knowledge (referred to in the Practickle guides as Activating Prior Knowledge), Active Comprehension Strategies, and Monitoring.

From this article: “Traditionally, there has been a tendency among educators to view the primary grades as the time to hone word-recognition skills, with comprehension developed in the later grades. Increasingly, this view is rejected, with many demonstrations that interventions aimed at improving comprehension — that is, interventions beyond word-recognition instruction — do, in fact, make an impact during the primary years. The authors in the Block and Pressley edited book, in particular, recognize that the starting point for the development of many comprehension skills is modeling of those skills. Hence, there is much commentary in the book about modeling, monitoring, and so on. Also, the authors were impressed that when researchers have asked primary-level students to use comprehension strategies and monitoring, the children have benefited greatly from it (Brown et al., 1996). There is definitely interest in expanding comprehension instruction in the early literacy experiences, with the expectation that such instruction will affect 5- to 8-year-olds dramatically in the short term and perhaps lead to development of better comprehension skills over the long term.”

This article is the best I’ve seen at explaining the research that is the foundation of Practickle. We include even more research, such as: having a single cognitive focus for each reading, including standards-based questions that look at the big ideas of the story or informational text, building vocabulary, and providing opportunities for the reading-writing connection.